In reality, what happens to 'lost' soldiers?

[Thomm]

Practical question: Suppose it is WW2 and you are part of a unit that is "destroyed" during a given action. What are you supposed to do then? Whom do you report to? What happens to you? How did the re-organization work?

Best regards,

Thomm

[c3k]

You were shot (or hanged), based on the judgment of a "flying" tribunal.

Oh, sorry, that was Germany, near the end. Other armies at other periods had other solutions.

[Scipio]

Retreating soldiers were ussually also shot in the Soviet Army of WWII. In the Military of less totalitarian nations I assume you report to the next best officer.

However, good question

[Lanzfeld]

I think your unit was "disbanded" or something like that.

You were sent to the rear to be reshuffeled and reinserted where needed.

Just a guess.

[TheVulture]

There are plenty of accounts from soldiers who were the separated from their unit / their unit got wiped out who tagged onto the next friendly unit they found until it was possible to make contact with their parent formation somewhere. I imagine that very few field commanders are going to turn down an extra few warm bodies.

[Thomm]

That sounds logical.

But who decided who got to keep whom? Could you order anyone that came along to act as a replacement in your squad. For immediate action, sure, but afterwards?

Who did the book-keeping? How was it made official that a soldier was not MIA but became part of a different unit? How long did this process take? Where there ever complete records about who was fighting in which unit at a given time?

Best regards,

Thomm

[Chainsaw]

you have the clerks for that. every soldier is accounted for in the army, even back in WWII. (even to some extent in soviet)

if you look at the german army you had your soldbuch with you with info about you and your unit, then you had a wehrpass that was kept higher up where your progress was tracked.

So I guess when someone was absormed into a new unit the units clerk sent a report back stating "soldier X with number 12345 from unit X has been absorbed into this unit" and that info was tracked back to wehrpass.

You can say that when the routines worked and there was time for it the soldiers was tracked in the units. But when sheit hits the fan and frontlines was heavely beaten straglers just ended up in some random units and recording was the last thing they bothered with. but when (if) the unit got reorganised again the soldiers was accounted for again. Thats atleast for the german Army, how the other countrys did i dont know.

[MikeyD]

American units were largely reconstituted in the field by replacement, I believe. 3rd Squad, 4th Platoon, 5th Company, 6th infantry wasn't allowed to just winkle out of existance. Yes, that was as big a muddle as it sounds. Four or five surviving veterans surrounded by fresh green troops, and clueles NCOs who still had a crease in their trousers. Some front line infantry units had casualties well over 100% and kept fighting. This is where that old line about not getting friendly with the new guy came from. Casualty rates from fresh replacements were exponentially greater than among survivors. And apparently, the beat-down veterans eventually stopped bothering to help the new cannon fodder get up to speed and simply concentrated on their personal survival.

[Thorondor]

Logically, you report to a suitable officer, which would send you to company, battalion or regimental HQ, where you would be reasigned along with the rest of the reinforcements, or reunited with the rest of your unit.

The personell officer at the relevant level would be in charge of this, as directed by command.

It was not unusual for effectively destroyed units to be "reformed" at a fraction of their nominal strength when in a pinch. For instance, some of the Africa Corps regiments where down to 90 fighting men towards the end.

Chain of Command-wise it would be to bothersome to "skip" organizational levels, so if your company is the size of a platoon, it remains a company on paper, though it would probably be attatched to some other unit, or banded together in a battle group.